Letters: We think we have a gimmick

Dear Mr. Dowd:

I thought you might be interested in learning about our product since you are quite the beverage connoisseur.

To quote you to you, "Energy drinks are found in such profusion on the market that there's little chance the product will get any press unless a manufacturer comes up with a new gimmick."

I heartily agree. The number of "me, too" brands out there boggles the mind, each trying out extreme each other or adding a smattering of supplements that currently have the public's eye. That said, there is the emergence of a new kind of energy drink, not going for "extreme," but simply "smart." We believe that our smart energy drink SmartPower is positioned to be the leader of that category.

I guess we do have a gimmick, too, in the sense that our "message brand" (part of our company's commitment to getting people to Think Two Steps Ahead -- about ingesting caffeine and in life) is called Nuclear Waste Antidote. Our Web site is Smart Power Drinks.

-- Eleanor Mason Reinholdt, Smart Energy Enterprises Inc., Benecia, CA

Dear Eleanor:

It's always interesting to learn about new products. Thanks for the note.

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Coca-Cola, read all about it!

Coca-Cola seems intent on capturing more than just beverage market share.

As I reported earlier, the international drinks giant is partnering with L'Oreal for a "neutraceutical" drink that purportedly will quench thirst and help skin health.

Now, it's partnering with the Belgian magazine GLAM*IT to offer the magazine on a bottle of Coke.

The project will go to market in April, with a version of GLAM*IT -- known for its young, glamorous fashion mag content and audience -- attached to the bottle.

Joanna Wojtalik, the inventor behind the revolutionary On Product Publishing concept, said in a statement, “On Product Publishing is all about broadening and targeting content delivery by using the mass market reach of an FMCG distribution network.

"In these terms, the Coca-Cola Company provides the perfect platform to utilize On Product Publishing, which will convert its Coca-Cola light bottles into an unrivalled communications tool. Effectively, the OPP label allows Coca-Cola light to place more content directly on its product and thereby enhance the relationship its consumers have with the brand at the point of purchase.”

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Other soft drinks strike out, but root beer a hit

Soft drinks have not been getting much positive press of late.

Obesity, diabetes and the like have been linked to excessive sugar intake, much of it from soft drinks. Root beer, however, is getting some good press out of the whole mess because the Academy of General Dentistry says root beer may be the safest soft drink for teeth.

According to a study published in the March/April 2007 issue of General Dentistry, the AGD's clinical, peer-reviewed journal, exposing teeth to soft drinks, even for a short period of time, causes dental erosion—and prolonged exposure can lead to significant enamel loss. Root beer products, however, are non-carbonated and do not contain the acids that harm teeth.

Even diet drinks can be harmful to teeth. While they may not contain sugar, they do contain phosphoric acid, citric acid or both and still cause dental erosion, though considerably less than their sugared counterparts.

"Drinking any type of soft drink poses risk to the health of your teeth," says AGD spokesperson Kenton Ross, DMD.

He recommends that patients consume fewer soft drinks by limiting their intake to meals. He also advises patients to drink with a straw, which will reduce soda's contact with teeth.

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New products, in brief

• Honest Tea expanded its lengthy line of ready-to-drink beverages with pomegranate white tea with acai. Three antioxidant-rich ingredients — pomegranates, white tea and acai berry — are combined with less than three teaspoons of organic cane sugar to create the delicately flavored tea with 35 calories per 8-ounce serving, although it is packaged in a 16.9-ounce bottle.

• Pepsi-Cola North America has added low-calorie, vitamin-added Aquafina Alive to its line of bottled waters. It's available in three flavor combinations — berry pomegranate, peach mango and orange lime. It contains "a splash" of fruit juice and is a good source of vitamins E, B6 and B12 and niacin, the company says. Every 8-ounce serving has 10 calories and provides 10 percent of the daily value of each of these nutrients. Aquafina Alive is available in 20-ounce plastic bottles for $1.29 and 16.9-ounce six-packs for $3.39.

• Cintron Beverage Group launched Cintron Energy Enhancer in citrus mango, tropical zzul, pineapple passion and sugar-free citrus mango. It uses sucrose as the sweetener. The 16-ounce silver can, which features a resealable plastic top, retails for $1.99.

• Cooper Tea Co. has unveiled Bazza High-Energy Tea, a no-calorie tea with natural energy ingredients — green tea, yerba mate, guarana and cola nut. It is available in green tea and raspberry tea flavors, each in a 16.9-ounce resealable bottle priced at $1.79.
Bazza High-Energy Tea

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Anheuser-Busch makes a 180

There are so many "enery drinks" on the market that unless a manufacturer comes up with a new gimmick there's little chance the product will get any press.

Welcome 180 Red with Goji.

Anheuser-Busch's new energy drink meets that criterion with the inclusion of goji, a small, high-antioxidant Tibetan berry that helps impart a cherry taste to the slightly sweet drink.

For consumers into the minutiae of drink formulae, growers and vendors of goji, also known as wolfberries, say they are loaded with all sorts of nutrients -- 18 kinds of amino acids, 21 trace minerals, and "500 times the amount of vitamin C, by weight, than oranges, making them second only to camu camu berries as the richest vitamin C source on earth," among others.

The overall formula contains carbonated water, sucrose, goji berry juice, acerola juice, guarana -- a natural caffeine, vitamins B-6, B-12 and C, and lychee natural flavor.

180 Red joins a product line that includes 180 Blue, 180 Blue Low-Calorie and 180 Sugar-Free Orange Citrus Blast. It is now available nationally in 8.2- and 16-ounce cans.

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Kmart expanding beverage line

Kmart is adding 32 new private label non-carbonated beverage products to its lineup under the American Fare brand name.

They include vitamin water, bottled green iced tea, Free Fall and Loop energy drinks, and Fruit FX fruit-flavored water and a 10-pack of juice pouches.

Kmart already offers a line of American Fare beverages. The new drinks will be available in all Kmart stores by mid-April.

Coke for sensual skin?

Coke and L'Oréal may seem like an odd partnership, but anything goes in the beverage world these days.

The soft drink giant and the skin care behemoth are teaming up on a new health-and-beauty beverage to be launched next year, axcording to industry sources cited by Brandweek.

Says the magazine, "Currently called Lumaé, the "nutraceutical" drink was trademarked as a tea-based ready-to-drink beverage by Coca-Cola's Beverage Partners Worldwide division. The drink, which is still in the early stages of development, is expected to contain ingredients that will help women care for their skin, per a source."

"Neutraceuticals" are a growing industry niche. Coca-Cola has been producing “Love Body” in Japan for a while, and more recently launched “Enviga” in the U.S.

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Ever hear of bochu? You will

If you begin hearing claims of a new herbal ingredient in your beverage, it might be bochu.

Some soft drink companies already use it by the ton, and it's even used in some French perfumes. Recently, the South African herb has been growing in demand, both by legal and illegal means from poachers who harvest and steal buchu from the remote mountain slopes where it grows wild.

Most buchu had traditionally been harvested from wild plants, but it now is grown on numerous irrigated farms. Producers have been having talks with soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to begin regularly purchasing the herb.

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Soft drinks drying up

The sales chart arrow is pointing in the wrong direction for the U.S. soft drinks industry.

Beverage Digest, a major industry publiciation, said today that the sales volume declined 0.6% in 2006 following a 0.2% decline in 2005. That's based on sales of 10.16 billion cases of soft drinks in 2006, down from 10.22 billion in 2005.

An increase in consumer demand for bottled water and healthier drinks in general is blamed, or credited, with the decline. However, in flavored soft drinks Pepsi's Mountain Dew rose 1%, Cadbury's Dr. Pepper 1.7% and Coke's Fanta 7%.

Energy drink makers Hansen Natural Corp., Rockstar and Red Bull saw their sales volumes soar, with Hansen up 68%, Rockstar up 65% and Red Bull up 27%.

“The carbonated soft drink industry has moved from roughly 3 percent growth in the 1990s to modest declines in the last two years,” Beverage Digest reported, saying the estimate included energy drinks, a very fast-growing segment. “Beverage Digest estimates that if energy drinks were excluded, the category would be down by about 1.5 percent.” the report said.

U.S. drinks makers Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. posted U.S. volume declines of 1.2% and 1.3%, respectively, while UK company Cadbury Schweppes Plc saw its volume rise 1.3%, according to Beverage Digest.

Volume of Coke Classic fell 2% to 1.76 billion cases while Pepsi-Cola's fell 2.5% to 1.11 billion cases, Beverage Digest said. Sales volumes of Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi also fell slightly. The top three brands by market share are Coke Classic, Pepsi Cola and Diet Coke.

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Bionade: Es bitte kaufen

A German manufacturer is embarking on an effort to get its organic soda a place on the global beverage stage.

Bionade, a low-calorie carbonated beverage sold in orange ginger, elderberry, lychee and herb flavors, is the hot non-alcoholic drink of the moment in German bars and clubs, particularly in Hamburg, Germany's media capital.

"We plan to go into the whole of old Europe this year as well as the U.S., and the Canadian and Japanese markets," Peter Kowalsky, chief executive of the privately held firm, told Reuters. "It is the first and only non-alcoholic refreshment drink produced by a purely organic process."

Getting international acceptance might be tricky because Kowalsky said Bionade will continue its advertising-averse stance. He prefers word-of-mouth and news media mentions to drive sales. Which seems to be working on a regional basis since Bionade has tripled sales to 70 million bottles annually.

The drink was created in 1995 when Dieter Leipold, whose financially flailing family brewery was in trouble, came up with the idea of using brewing principles to create an organic soft drink. It is manufactured in the village of Ostheim in central Germany.

Reuters checked with several market analysts to predict Bionade's chances of international success.

"The United States in particular is a difficult market," said Patrik Schwendimann of ther ZKB brokerage in Switzerland. "It usually takes several years and a lot of patience to make any headway there."

"The difficulty is to find a foreign distributor," said Jens Pollmann, corporate consultant at Price Waterhouse Coopers' office in Dusseldorf, "but I wouldn't exclude the possibility that it'll work out for them in the end."

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Dial up your own fizz level

Turbo-Fizz.

Lock that term away in your memory bank. I suspect you'll be hearing a lot about it when the soft drink industry gets into full gear.

"Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Britvic, the soft drinks manufacturers, are developing a raft of increasingly wacky space-age new products in an attempt to stem the decline of growth in the fizzy drinks market," reports Mark Choueke in London's Sunday Telegraph.

"Innovations being developed by the industry include a 'turbo-fizz' dial feature on the side of a can that allows consumers to increase or reduce the amount of bubbles in their drink. Drinks that change colour are also being developed. Such features could be the norm within five years, according to soft drink industry experts."

Of course, this could be one gigantic joke. When I Googled "turbo-fizz" the only hit I got was on a "Star Wars" fan site that showed a lot of humor.

In its list of SW-esque foods and drinks it listed " Turbofizz -- A highly carbonated drink popular in the Corporate Sector." It also listed such things as Death Star Popcorn Balls, Boba Fett-uccine and "Harmon Kizzlebrew -- This beer is favored in the Mid Rim, and is an excellent accompaniment to steamed yazstrimskizzies."

The Telegraph, citing "sources from within some of the largest soft drinks manufacturers in the UK," reports that within a few years, drinks on store shelves "will use interactive features such as aroma and sound. Cans fitted with technology to ensure that drinks are served at the correct temperature, even if they haven't previously been chilled, are also being tested."

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Coffee industry: We're No. 1 again!

It's been a long time, but coffee finally has regained supremacy over soft drinks in America's drinking habits.

The percentage of adults who drink a daily cup of coffee exceeds those who drink a soft drink every day for tghe first time since 1990, according to the National Coffee Association of USA.

Of nearly 3,000 adults reached in a random January telephone survey for the 2006 National Coffee Drinking Trends report, 57% said they drank coffee every day, up 1% from 2006; 51% said they drank a soft drink daily, down 6% from the prior year. from 57 percent a year ago. The number of adults who drink coffee at least once a week is 67%, down 1% from 2006.

“(The increase) is mostly in regular coffees, not as you might expect in the more gourmet coffee beverages. We believe that this is mostly because of the way consumers are thinking about coffee. There’s this classification that gourmet coffees to them are becoming much more mainstream and they are counting that as regular coffee,” Bill Gottlieb, a market researcher for Starbucks Corp., told the NCA annual convention in Arizona on Saturday.

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